A decade after 28,000 farmers surrendered 34,000 acres in the world's largest voluntary land pooling exercise, we return to the villages that bet their fields on a capital city. Ten years ago, the farmers of Thullur man...
A decade after 28,000 farmers surrendered 34,000 acres in the world's largest voluntary land pooling exercise, we return to the villages that bet their fields on a capital city.
Ten years ago, the farmers of Thullur mandal did something no large landowning community had done anywhere in the world: they voluntarily handed over their fields — 34,000 acres across 29 villages — to build a capital city, in exchange for developed plots and a share in the city's future. This week, as construction cranes finally crowd the horizon they were promised, we walked through five of those villages to ask what the decade has meant.
The deal, revisited
Under the scheme, a farmer surrendering one acre of dry land received a 1,000 square yard residential plot and a 250 square yard commercial plot in the planned city, plus an annuity of ₹30,000 a year for ten years, rising annually. Wet-land owners received larger entitlements. Landless labourers — nearly 21,000 families — were promised ₹2,500 a month for a decade and skill training.
The intervening decade tested that bargain severely. The 2019-2024 capital uncertainty froze plot values and halted construction; annuities continued but the promised city did not. "We were farmers who became plot-holders," says Ramanamma, 58, of Nelapadu. "For ten years a plot cannot feed a family. Now, finally, the plots have value again."
The ledger today
Land Pooling: The Decade's Ledger
- Plots returned to farmers: 62,142 of 64,871 entitled (95.8%)
- Annuities paid: ₹2,840 crore across ten years
- Current market value of returned plots: est. ₹28,000-34,000 crore
- Pending grievances before the CRDA tribunal: 3,117
Registration data tells the story of revived confidence: plot transactions in the capital villages have quadrupled since construction resumed, and per-yard prices in Thullur have recovered past their 2018 peak. Yet the scheme's harder promises — the jobs, the skill training, the transformation of labourers into urban workers — remain works in progress. Of the 21,000 landless families, fewer than 6,000 have members employed in capital construction so far.
The villages themselves are becoming neighbourhoods. Thullur has its first multi-storey building; Rayapudi's school teaches in English medium; the temple at Malkapuram now shares its street with a site office of a Japanese engineering firm. Whether this is loss or arrival depends, in every conversation, on which generation is speaking.
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